Lincoln’s clarity on slavery.

[LincolnMan]

I love this excerpt from Lincoln’s speech in Michigan:

“We have been in the habit of deploring the fact that slavery exists among us. We have ever deplored it. Our forefathers did, and they declared, as we have done in later years, the blame rested upon the mother government of Great Britain. We constantly condemn Great Britain for not preventing slavery from coming amongst us. She would not interfere to prevent it, and so individuals were able to introduce the institution without opposition.”

I don’t recall seeing this quote before but I think it says everything on Lincoln’s view regarding slavery.

[mbgross]

(05-14-2019 11:12 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I love this excerpt from Lincoln’s speech in Michigan:

“We have been in the habit of deploring the fact that slavery exists among us. We have ever deplored it. Our forefathers did, and they declared, as we have done in later years, the blame rested upon the mother government of Great Britain. We constantly condemn Great Britain for not preventing slavery from coming amongst us. She would not interfere to prevent it, and so individuals were able to introduce the institution without opposition.”

I don’t recall seeing this quote before but I think it says everything on Lincoln’s view regarding slavery.

I am not familiar with that. Thanks for sharing.

[LincolnMan]

The excerpt is from Lincoln’s Kalamazoo speech. A newspaper from Detroit printed it.

[David Lockmiller]

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, proposed by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, opened the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to settlement. It effectively repealed the 1820 Missouri Compromise that had restricted slavery in the territories north of 36⁰30′ latitude which included Kansas and Nebraska. Instead, the Kansas-Nebraska Act said that the settlers of those territories could decide for themselves whether they would be free or slave states, a concept that Douglas called “popular sovereignty.”

Lincoln wrote in this speech various elements:

We have been in the habit of deploring the fact that slavery exists among us. We have ever deplored it. Our forefathers did, and they declared, as we have done in later years, the blame rested upon the mother government of Great Britain. We constantly condemn Great Britain for not preventing slavery from coming amongst us. She would not interfere to prevent it, and so individuals were able to introduce the institution without opposition.

We are a great empire. We are eighty years old. We stand at once the wonder and admiration of the whole world, and we must enquire what it is that has given us so much prosperity, and we shall understand that to give up that one thing, would be to give up all future prosperity. This cause is that every man can make himself. It has been said that such a race of prosperity has been run nowhere else. We find a people on the Northeast, who have a different government from ours, being ruled by a Queen. Turning to the South, we see a people who, while they boast of being free, keep their fellow beings in bondage.

I have noticed in Southern newspapers, particularly the Richmond Enquirer, the Southern view of the Free States. They insist that slavery has a right to spread. They defend it on principle. They insist that their slaves are far better off than Northern freemen. What a mistaken view do these men have of Northern laborers! They think that men are always to remain laborers here – but there is no such class. The man who labored for another last year, this year labors for himself, and next year he will hire others to labor for him. These men don’t understand when they think in this manner of Northern free labor.

We believe that it is right that slavery should not be tolerated in the new territories, yet we cannot get support for this doctrine, except in one part of this country. Slavery is looked upon by men in light of dollars and cents. The estimated worth of slaves at the South is $1,000,000,000, and in a very few years, if the institution shall be admitted in the territories, they will have increased by 50 percent in value.

[LincolnMan]

Thanks David for posting the speech!

[David Lockmiller]

(05-15-2019 07:41 PM)LincolnMan Wrote:  Thanks David for posting the speech!

I found the entire speech at Lincoln's 1856 speech at Kalamazoo

[David Lockmiller]

Footnotes to history:

Lincoln was one of many speakers in the park that summer day. His 2,781 word speech (about 16.5 minutes long) was given in front of thousands of people and was recorded, by hand, by a newspaper reporter from Detroit. The speech was discovered in 1930 and published in 1941. He came to Kalamazoo on August 27, 1856 on the invitation of Kalamazoo attorney, Hezekiah G. Wells.

The Kalamazoo Gazette reported the rally, but the text of the speech appeared in the Detroit Daily Advertiser. This was the only time that Lincoln addressed an audience in Michigan.

[LincolnMan]

Having been at the park in Kalamazoo where he gave the speech- it must have been very packed with people given the size of the place. I don’t know but it seems to me the speech hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.

[David Lockmiller]

(05-16-2019 10:45 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I don’t know but it seems to me the speech hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.

I thought that the most unusual aspect of the speech content related to the following statement made by the Kalamazoo Valley Museum personnel in the section prefacing the reprinting of Lincoln's speech entitled "What is the Speech About?":

"Anti-slavery activists felt that this expansion of slavery threatened the free labor, free market capitalist system of the Northern states. They responded by organizing a new political party in 1854, the Republican Party, and ran their first Presidential campaign in 1856."

In some support of this statement is the following paragraph from Lincoln's speech that day:

"We are a great empire. We are eighty years old. We stand at once the wonder and admiration of the whole world, and we must inquire what it is that has given us so much prosperity, and we shall understand that to give up that one thing, would be to give up all future prosperity. This cause is that every man can make himself. It has been said that such a race of prosperity has been run nowhere else. We find a people on the Northeast, who have a different government from ours, being ruled by a Queen. Turning to the South, we see a people who, while they boast of being free, keep their fellow beings in bondage."

What do you think?

[RJNorton]

Apparently not all in Lincoln's audience were supportive of his position. I found the following text in Museography (a publication of the Kalamazoo Valley Museum and Kalamazoo Valley Community College).

"We know what Lincoln had to say because his remarks were taken down by a reporter in shorthand and published in the Detroit Daily Advertiser on Aug. 29, 1856. His comments prefigured themes that were developed in his “House Divided” speech he gave two years later. Still, his comments were not universally well received. Members of the Michigan audience were more abolitionist than Lincoln. The pro-Democrat Kalamazoo Gazette reported that Lincoln “was far too conservative and Union-loving in his sentiments to suit his audience.”

Unlike Detroit abolitionist Zachariah Chandler who vowed to make Kansas a “desert” if it entered the Union as a slave state, Lincoln’s conciliatory tone brought out some boos from the audience.

It was clear from this response that attitudes, North and South, were already hardening. Little did the politician from Illinois or his audience realize how soon they would be locked in a war to preserve the Union."

https://www.kalamazoomuseum.org/info/mus...use_XV.pdf

[LincolnMan]

Lincoln knew that the Union had to be preserved. I admire Chandler greatly but believe his approach was absolutely wrong. Interesting stuff Roger!

[ELCore]

It's in Volume 2 of the Collected Works: Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan.

[LincolnMan]

(05-17-2019 08:56 AM)ELCore Wrote:  It's in Volume 2 of the Collected Works: Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Thanks for providing the link to the speech. Here is an annotation found at it’s conclusion:

[1] Detroit Daily Advertiser, August 29, 1856. The occasion was a giant Republican ``concourse'' with a ``free public table,'' parades, eight bands, and the Battle Creek Glee Club providing entertainment. Four speakers stands were going simultaneously during the afternoon, so that the Advertiser lamented its single stenographic reporter assigned to report the speeches and added, ``Our reporter stuck to the main stand. . . .'' Lincoln was preceded by Zachariah Chandler of Detroit and introduced by Hezekiah G. Wells of the Republican executive committee.

Sounds like it was a fun day for all. I see Mr. Chandler preceded Lincoln in speech giving. I would like to read his speech also-might prove very interesting.

[RJNorton]

Bill, I do not know if this is all that Chandler said, but I found many of his words here.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


"The Republicans of Michigan stand by the constitution, and when their defamers proclaim that they are a disunion party, as they do so often, they publish what they know to be a falsehood. . . . We are determined to stand by the constitution in all its parts, and, more than that, to make our adversaries stand by it in all and every part. . . . Our opponents have ignored this constitution with but a single exception. And what is that exception? It is the key to their character and their principles. In this whole instrument they acknowledge but one clause, and that is the right to reclaim fugitive slaves from their hard - earned freedom!

We intend to make our opponents stand by this clause: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to the privileges of all the States." But how is this at present on the Missouri? The citizens of Massachusetts, of New Jersey, of Pennsylvania or of Michigan, if they but presume to enter Kansas, are sent back with a guard or murdered in cold blood, while the citizens of the South are aided on their way to plant in that beautiful territory the accursed blight of slavery. We will make them stand by the constitution in all its parts, or, by the Eternal, we will have a different state of things here. The oak shall bear other fruit than acorns if the constitution be not upheld.

Here is another clause of that instrument: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the press." How is it in Kansas to-day regarding this? If any man shall dare to deny the right to hold slaves in that territory he is imprisoned for a term of five years.

Our opponents must also stand by this clause of the constitution: "A "well-regulated militia being necessary of a free state, the right of the people "to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That clause of the Constitution is trampled under foot, and the Democratic platform in sustaining Pierce's administration virtually sustains and endorses the disgraceful outrage.

Here is another clause: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." The whole history of the Kansas matter shows how shamefully this clause has been rejected by those who uphold the administration.

There are but two candidates for the Presidency and but two platforms. The issue — the only issue — is : Shall slavery be national ? Shall it be under our protection, or shall it be under the protection of the slave States only? The whole question of platforms is in that. It is the only question. . . . The policy of this government for twenty -five years has been pro-slavery.

The first act toward breaking that policy was the election of Banks as Speaker last winter. It was the first of what I hope will be a series of victories.

A few years ago there was great commotion in the land. We were told "the Union is in danger." ''What shall be done?" That was the first question. What was the answer of the men in power? "Use the utmost power of the government ; the Union must be saved." Armed men went through the streets of Boston. Troops were ordered there in great numbers. Ships of war were sent to Massachusetts Bay. What was the terrible danger of the Union? There was a Negro lost I A slave had run away ! A poor African had escaped from his master and — lo, the Union was in danger ! "Use all the power of the government ; the laws must be enforced." Other troops were ordered there. The militia were called out. They surrounded the jail. A sloop of war was sent. Bums was borne back to his master and the Union was saved !

There came a later cry, "the Union is in danger." This time it was heard from bleeding Kansas. Armed bands were committing daily depredations. This appeal reached the government, and what answer is made by the party in power? "I see nothing to call for executive interference." "Nothing?" Yet an empire is being crushed. "Nothing?" Yet houses are being robbed and burned, and helpless women and children murdered ! "No cause for interference? " The reason is plain. There was no Negro lost."

[LincolnMan]

I need to read this a few times over-as I am at work. Thank you Roger.